Up until now, I haven’t really mentioned much about the work Ga and I did in our local community of St Mellons. If you read back to my first ever post ‘Back in the day’ you’ll remember it was actually on a converted double decker bus Ga and I first met, loving and serving the local youth every Thursday night. We continued doing that whilst we went out, and together ran holiday clubs for local children in the summer, and eventually became committed members of an active ‘kids klub’ that ran out of a local church called Bethania. I have fond memories of me and Ga, and my housemates at the time walking children up through the estate we lived on, singing songs, holding hands and playing games, making sure they got to the club safely. Ga supported me in running the Sunday school in the Beacon church I went to then, and when we got married, after much prayerful consideration we began our life as husband and wife in Bethania church. That church is less than a 15 minute walk from our house – one of the factors for buying where we did. After a year’s deliberate break from children’s and youth work (it takes time, effort and energy to build a healthy marriage, and we were thankful for the wisdom of Bethania church members who advocated we prioritize our marriage in that first year), we returned enthusiastically to help out regularly with the ‘kidz klub’ – a Friday night event for primary-aged children that involved loud music and songs, messy games, biblical truths being taught and applied and lots and lots of fun being had. Ga loved it, and it had the added bonus of being run by one of his closest friends (who also was our best man). Over time we also enjoyed spending time with the small number of youth who’d outgrown kids klub themselves but were now venturing out into helping run it with us. In fact, in February 2013 Ga came home one evening, very pleased, as they’d had a competition to see who could do the most press-ups in a minute (the kind where you have to clap your hands in between each push). Ga had managed 42! Way more than the other leaders and even 16-year-old lads! (His strong arms had been one of the first things I’d noticed about him back in the day!)
In the latter half of 2012 Bethania church had been hosting monthly ‘Taster’ sessions for local families, loosely based on the premise of ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’ through the medium of creative activities, song and drama. This was right up mine and Ga’s street and with no uni work now taking up Ga’s time, nor foreign travel planned for several months, he wholeheartedly got stuck into this. As I was exploring my own creativity through knitting, each month I had an area where I taught people to knit little flowers and book marks embellished with ribbon and buttons, whilst Ga ambitiously taught kids how to make their own paper from scratch (aka from a large pulpy mess)! And leading up to December, me and Ga enthusiatically volunteered ourselves to coordinate and organize that year’s Christmas Taster’s afternoon.
We calculated afterwards that between the two of us we put over 40 hours into preparing for it, both big believers that failure to prepare is preparing to fail. But here’s the thing; working on this together wasn’t taxing, tedious or hard work because we were doing it together. In fact is was so much fun! From the trip to Caerphilly Mountain woodland to collect numerous black bags of fir-tree branches, fallen pine-cones, red berries and green holly so that 25 traditional yule logs could be made (Ga supervised the necessary hammering that was involved with that craft), to sitting watching a film whilst I cut out numerous cardboard circles to make Christmas pom-pom snowman’s with, and Ga prepared piles of cut-out felt ready for families to get creative designing their own Christmas stockings with. We had fun devising and practicing a 5-minute drama using puppets, where we’d share the really great news of Christmas (that’s Jesus, being born in-case you weren’t sure). We loved sharing our enthusiasm with other Bethania friends, who each were shown before the day what was involved with the craft station they were designated to. And Ga enjoyed time on his Apple Mac, making the bright and cheerful poster for the event that’s shown above.
It was such a great afternoon, local families and my neighbours came along and it was awesome to be part of facilitating such an event where mums and dads were right alongside their children, relaxed and having fun being creative and celebrating the build-up to Christmas. Where church members and local families were getting to know one another more in a fun and safe way. We were all exhausted as we tidied away after it, but buzzing!
And Ga had plans for the future of ‘Tasters’. He’d bought several books and in the beginning of 2013 was already planning and budgeting for organising crafts such as soap-making and candle making. We’d had meetings with other church members about our vision for ‘Tasters’ in the year to come. He’d already made more invitation templates for the next few month’s sessions, even though the next one we were responsible for organising was the one after Easter 2013.
But we never got to run that one. As by then Gareth was dead.
And with his death something deep within me has died too.
For I no longer have that passion and commitment I had then to love and serve the families of St Mellons as I had for the previous 8 years. It is still vitally important and essential, and I know people still are loving St Mellon’s families as we once did, but I cannot presently be the person I was here, without my partner in service alongside me. That was such a significant part of our marriage, that I’ve come to realise that the pain of serving here without him is just too deep to even try; and that is something I’ve only recently been able to admit to myself.
I have only been back to Bethania church once since he died; several weeks after the funeral, to say my goodbyes to dear friends who had been the active participants that cheered Ga and I on in our almost 5 years of marriage. Being there, with the seat empty next to me, when for so long he was there beside me hurt too much to contemplate going back there since. As it happened me and Ga had already decided we would be moving churches in April 2013, for reasons mostly relating to the growing awareness of a need for fellowship with people of our own age group (the majority of our lovely Bethania family were young grandparents) and wanting to see more of Ga’s family more regularly… so a move to a larger community church (and joining their St Mellons house-group) was imminent anyway.
As it turned out that decision was confirmed the week before Ga flew to Liberia in March 2013, and that first week at house-group I introduced myself and explained how they would meet Ga in a few weeks when he was back from his photographic assignment.
Fast forward two years and although I am not longer actively involved with St Mellons church or serving the local families here, I have begun taking steps to re-engage myself with church activities. Not because I feel I ‘should’ but because I want to. I have only ever put so much time and energy into church activities as my own personal response to the overwhelming love Jesus Christ has shown me, and I will be eternally grateful for the people who gave up their time and energies to help me really’ get’ that love, back when I was 16. To give back to God, and be a facilitator in other people realizing how awesome God is and how unimaginably great is his love for them, it is a privilege and responsibility I gladly embrace. For the first year of widowhood I did nothing other than help out with a half-term holiday club (that involved nothing more taxing that having a huge water fight with the kids). After hitting 12 months I decided to take small steps so joined the church rota for putting chairs out before the Sunday service. I could do that whether I was feeling positive, hopeful or was holding it all together but just wanting to sob inside. I tentatively asked to sit in with the young children’s club (for children aged 5 -10), and at first it was enough to just be present within a world that on one hand was so familiar to me, but on the other was so alien as I now had to figure a future of it out without Ga sharing the experience with me.
And now, just beginning my third year of this widowhood experience, I am a regular leader in the Sunday group. I have tip-toed my way back into leading stories, prayers, songs and games. Sometimes it’s been easy, sometimes hard. Either way I always benefit from being there. But I’ve been doing that for about 6 months now and will continue to do so for now.
Quietly, quietly, week by week I’m continuing to find my feet in this new world of mine. I’m not completely there yet and haven’t a clue if I ever will be or what that will actually look like, but I’ll continue to put one foot in front of the other and ‘move onwards’ in this life without Ga.
Under the influence of six... 